Field of Dreams 2? Team That Beat 'Black Sox' in 1919 Playing the Next One
Major League Baseball will try to pull a sequel to its best production in this lifetime. Just a few days after the wildly-popular Field of Dreams Game in the middle of an Iowa corn field, the league indicated it wants to have a second act in 2022.
The site where "Field of Dreams" was filmed hosted the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox on Aug. 12. The movie was inspired from a book about the 1919 White Sox, in which eight members of that team conspired to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The movie is about "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, the "Black Sox" star who comes back to life to play baseball again with his peers in an Iowa corn field.
Fast forward more than 30 years after the movie was released, and the White Sox played the Yankees in a makeshift stadium next to the original ball field, which is still there. Now, MLB would like to have another game. This time it would be the Reds playing the Chicago Cubs, according to the Associated Press and other outlets.
Just like any sequel, it might be hard for MLB to top last week's production, which included multiple interviews from the 1989 movie's cast. The pregame show was loaded with clips from the movie.
The Yankees and White Sox players emerged onto the scene from a corn field, just to be greeted by actor Kevin Costner, who played the character Ray Kinsella in the movie. Some of the players went out of their way greet Costner in the outfield.
The game itself had a Hollywood ending before the 8,000 fans in attendance and millions watching on TV. The White Sox took a 7-4 lead into the ninth inning before the Yankees scored four runs to take an 8-7 lead in the top half.
The Sox's first hitter grounded out in the bottom of the ninth, and the next batter quickly had an 0-2 count. However, Seby Zavala reached base via a walk. Then, Tim Anderson drilled a pitch into the right field cornfield to give Chicago a walk-off, 9-8, win.
It capped a night of heavy emotions with baseball holding an MLB game at the Dyersville, Iowa, site where "Field of Dreams" was filmed and later released in 1989. It's widely regarded as one of the best baseball movies ever made.
The game, broadcast in primetime on Fox, had an hour-long pregame show with snippets from the movie, an appearance by Costner (the movie's leading star) and a narration by James Earl Jones, who played a pivotal role in the movie as well.
The game was played at a specially-made stadium that held nearly 8,000 fans. The stadium was constructed next to the original cornfield made for the movie, and fans had to maneuver their way through a corn pathway to get to the stadium.
The crowd audibly had more White Sox fans, who erupted in the first inning after Jose Abreu homered to the corn field beyond the left field wall. The Yankees took a 3-1 lead in the top of the third, courtesy of an Aaron Judge three-run dinger to right field.
Eloy Jiminez hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the third to give the White Sox a 5-3 lead. Chicago tacked on two more runs in the fourth to take a 7-3 lead. The Yankees added a run in the sixth, setting up a fireworks finish in the desolate Iowa corn to cap the night.
